The use of radiographic intensifying screens to reduce the dosage of X-rays in X-ray examinations of a patient (so-called medical radiography), is well-known. These screens will indeed increase the speed of a system many times over. X-ray intensifying screens normally are manufactured by incorporation of a conventional phosphor in a suitable binder and coating this mixture on a support. Since relatively large amounts of a silver halide photographic emulsion are required to form an element used to record an X-ray image, conventionally, the silver halide emulsion is double-side coated on a suitable support. Then, of course, two X-ray screens must be used to generate the image. The use of a combination of two X-ray screens and a double-side coated photographic element results in some unsharpness due to so-called print-through and thus there is an ever-increasing desire by the medical community to increase the inherent sharpness of the system in order to preserve the image quality. With the advent of improved phosphor compositions that can produce more speed, it has been suggested that single-side coated photographic elements be used in an effort to reduce print-through. Naturally, the single-side coated photographic elements are not as fast as double-side coated photographic elements and thus it has been proposed to coat thicker phosphor layers in the screen element to overcome the speed loss. It has been found, however, that if one coats a thicker phosphor layer the resolution of the resulting image decreases and this is unacceptable.
In order to reduce scattered light within an X-ray intensifying screen, it has been found that mixing of pigmented particles within the active phosphor layer will absorb this scattered radiation. With the presence of pigmented particles in the phosphor layer, the speed of the system begins to fall off.
It has now been found that X-ray intensifying screens having higher resolution and which are faster and less noisy than conventional X-ray intensifying screens, when used with a single-side coated photographic element, can be prepared by adhering particular material to the phosphor present in the active layer of the intensifying screens.